Serious drama at home on YouTube

Tuesday

Aug 6, 2013 at 12:01 AMAug 6, 2013 at 11:29 AM

LOS ANGELES - The wails of an infant haunt much of the 13-minute YouTube clip. On the Internet's dominant video site, recordings of laughing babies, talking twin babies, roller-skating babies and more have long made for amusing, surefire click bait.

LOS ANGELES — The wails of an infant haunt much of the 13-minute YouTube clip.

On the Internet’s dominant video site, recordings of laughing babies, talking twin babies, roller-skating babies and more have long made for amusing, surefire click bait.

A crying newborn represents something different: It’s an attempt at groundbreaking original programming.

Susanna is a 12-part series starring Anna Paquin (True Blood) as a new mother who develops acute postpartum depression and struggles to care for her child.

The Web series, whose last video was posted on June 21, is the latest commission from female-centric WIGS, the top channel for scripted drama on YouTube.

“This whole platform for female-driven narratives and storytelling is just really exciting,” Paquin said. “As a woman, it’s sometimes a little hard to find material that’s challenging or interesting, where you’re not playing a wife or a girlfriend.

“I’m lucky enough to be on a TV show where I get to play a ... tough chick. That also is a rarity. This fits into that category. That’s why I wanted to be a part of it.”

WIGS — launched a year ago by Jon Avnet, a writer, director and producer best-known for Black Swan and Fried Green Tomatoes; and Rodrigo Garcia, the director of Albert Nobbs and the HBO series In Treatment — has constructed a roster of fan favorites.

Included are Blue, starring Julia Stiles as a single mom who moonlights as a prostitute; and Lauren, a drama about sexual misconduct in the military that features Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario and Jennifer Beals.

The marquee talent at WIGS also includes Jennifer Garner, Virginia Madsen, Alfred Molina and Stephen Moyer. Such actors, coupled with carefully crafted stories, have attracted about 46 million views — a modest performance by the standards of YouTube, whose most-viewed channel, gamer-focused Machinima, has logged almost 4.3 billion video views.

“We’re old fuddy-duddies as far as the Internet’s concerned, but ... you don’t have to read the crystal ball to know that the Internet is here to stay,” Garcia said. “But storytelling is not going to go anywhere. We wanted to tell them on the Internet in a valuable way.”

The little-discussed issue of postpartum depression allowed for an evocative yarn.

Avnet had been mulling the idea since an actress in London years ago confided details of her severe depression after the birth of her child.

He wrote several episodes of Susanna, in which a new mother, Katie, develops acute depression and is hospitalized, leaving her and her baby in the care of a career-focused younger sister, Susanna, played by central Ohio native Maggie Grace.

The sister struggles to close a big business deal while accepting that Katie won’t be recovering soon — thrusting a resentful and unprepared Susanna into the role of nurturing the infant, with whom she falls in love.